QUESTION: Sensei, I think most of us who helped Thomas-san at his cabin – even though we didn’t have aches and pains – after six hours of digging, six hours of a certain set of repetitive motions, our bodies felt different…

KIMBAL ANDERSON SENSEI: Well, consolidation is important. When you are happily focused on a task, there’s a tendency for the body to organize in its optimum state, because the mental contentment, if you want to call it that, has its own mudra in the body, and that mudra, once located as a life-skill, a life approach… well, you’re always going to be stronger. So you may be physically tired but the consolidation occurs.

And I think you guys all have enough training to start looking for that optimal place, and even unconsciously, last weekend, digging dirt up at the cabin, you worked it out.

And so if you’re not having split ki all the time: between “I don’t want to do this” and “I do want to do this” – because, of course, “okay… I have to do this…” is not the same as “I want to do this” – and in fact “I have to get this done” is just the typical slave-mind of this age: the “I’ll do my six hours of being-a-slave and then I’ll be myself…” mind…

Once you decide that this is not respectful to yourself, then you start consolidating everything… and this is also known as unifying mind and body… and a consolidated, yangized body is very, very strong.